International pop star Rihanna, a native of Barbados. *Photo from Wikipedia
November 30 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Barbados from the United Kingdom in 1966.
Inhabited by Kalinago people (or “Island Caribs”) since the 13th century, and prior to that by other Amerindians, Barbados was visited by Spanish navigators in the late 15th century and claimed for the Spanish Crown. It first appeared in a Spanish map in 1511. The Portuguese visited the island in 1536, but they left it unclaimed, with their only remnants being an introduction of wild hogs for a good supply of meat whenever the island was visited.
In 1627, the first permanent settlers arrived from England, and it became an English and later British colony. As a wealthy sugar colony, it became an English center of the African slave trade until that trade was outlawed in 1807, with final emancipation of slaves in Barbados occurring over a period of years from 1833.
In 1966, Barbados became an independent state and Commonwealth realm with the British Monarch (presently Queen Elizabeth II) as hereditary head of state.
Barbados is a sovereign island country in the Lesser Antilles (a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea), in the Americas.
*Reference: Wikipedia
